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The thread title seems "extreme" when there are in fact a number of games "for women" (or that are gender-neutral). The Elder Scroll game series comes to mind. I can think of 4 or 5 female friends without blinking who play the heck out of Oblivion, Skyrim. The first Dragon Age also qualifies.

Several MMOs seem fairly gender-neutral, especially in terms of the numbers of women who play them (EQ attracted large numbers of women, WoW ... join an MMO before the "kids get out of school" and there's a fairly large number of older women playing)
I'd even call the latest Tomb Raider a reboot in terms of being balanced from Lara's character design to the story line.

Yes, the larger majority of games just seem to assume a male is playing but there's been a substantial sea change since I started playing video/computer games in the late 1980s.

One thing I will say that is lacking are older women PCs. Most female PCs are in their teens or twenties. You have very few that are in their thirties (Femshep and Mara Jade are a couple that come to mind) and I can't think of any that are in their forties.

The question is, is there a market for older female PCs? Men tend to look up to the older male that can hold up his own as well as, if not better than, the younger generations; the veteran character. Do women feel the same way? Do women desire to be like the older veteran character; a woman, who is in her forties or fifties, who is physically fit, but has the appearance and problems of her age? From my experience, I find that doubtful.

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So people understand that I do not take these discussions seriously, its all good fun.

Except she's not a PC. However, do you think there is enough of a market of people who want to play as characters like her? Let me rephrase that question, if Kojima put up a poll asking gamers if they would rather play as Snake or as Boss, who would win?

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So people understand that I do not take these discussions seriously, its all good fun.

The thread title seems "extreme" when there are in fact a number of games "for women" (or that are gender-neutral). The Elder Scroll game series comes to mind. I can think of 4 or 5 female friends without blinking who play the heck out of Oblivion, Skyrim. The first Dragon Age also qualifies.

Several MMOs seem fairly gender-neutral, especially in terms of the numbers of women who play them (EQ attracted large numbers of women, WoW ... join an MMO before the "kids get out of school" and there's a fairly large number of older women playing)
I'd even call the latest Tomb Raider a reboot in terms of being balanced from Lara's character design to the story line.

Yes, the larger majority of games just seem to assume a male is playing but there's been a substantial sea change since I started playing video/computer games in the late 1980s.

Agreed. Tbh, after reading through some of the posts in this thread, it seems to be that the some people have some rather... stringent qualification as to what is acceptable for female characters.

Also, whomever linked that damsel in distress vid, thanks a lot. That's 23 minutes of my life I'll never be able to get back

I love these characters (Growing up for me, my idols were characters like Princess Peach and Cream the Rabbit while other kids looked up to characters like Mario or Sonic.) and would love to see them more developed and have more spotlight and a chance to shine... but they're always pushed into the roles of damsel in distress, exposition fairy, minor villain... basically an NPC.

Cream the Rabbit? Seriously? I think the hate is justified because she's an annoying character who serves no purpose in the series other than being there. She was no NPC, though. She was playable in Sonic Heroes and Sonic Advance 2. Amy Rose got plenty of opportunities to shine, too, by the way.

this reminds me of a conversation with someone I had regarding Gurren Lagann

he didn't want to watch it, especially with other people because it was "embarrassing" and "over the top childish"

his loss, I say

Consider why he thought that. Consider the reputation anime has built for itself... subservient moeblobs, tentacle rape and general all-around male domination of female objects.

Yes, it's not all like that. Yes, some of anime and manga's bad rep comes from cultural differences between the West and Japan. Yes, there is a mild stigma against liking "cartoons" when you aren't a kid anymore.

But enough of it exists to give the medium a bad reputation, especially among women. The same goes for video games, but gaming isn't nearly as bad as anime. I freely admit to people that I'm a gamer, but I do not volunteer that I enjoy anime and manga. I know damn well that most people will assume the worst.

I highly agree with the Article... but I still don't think games that DO target a specific gender or culture should be completely eradicated, there's nothing wrong with a game like Senran Kagura, I guess the issue is that games that DO take themselves a bit more seriously and aren't advertised as being eye-candy do serve that eyecandy.

I was just playing a game called Legacista and there is a mage character in the game who's breasts are so disgustingly large and her ingame dialogue sprites bounce when she changes sprites to convey different emotions....and it really just had little point to it other than just being there and as a consequence making me double take every time I play it and those scenes are there to make sure someone isn't watching.

Dead Island Paradise is(a bad game to me) a game that pretty much says ''This game is tits, just letting you know'', and anyone who buys it should clearly know exactly what they're getting theirselves into while they awkwardly look to the left buying it, I think games like this should be exempt from the perfectly justifiable desire to stop with all the annoying and pointless sex-appeal in other games.

But then again, there are some pretty skimpy outfits in other dead or alive games and silly bounce features even in the serious games and while it'd be annoying to see that crap in every game, I'm not sure whether I'd agree to support the idea of removing every trace of it.

If people can impose art and other things that were once alien to gaming, I think sexualization should have it's place in some gaming as well, and this isn't just saying that it should be male-exclusive, I don't claim to know what girls like but if there is a game that fits their personal fantasies and such then I support those types of games as well....

I'm okay with sexual objectification in video games as long as it's equally applied and fair.

Right now, it's not. Your female characters are sexually objectified while your male characters are designed around a male power fantasy. Both methods of objectification are serving the male interest ONLY.

You wanna make a sexy game? Sure. Put some sexy, big-breasted girls in, but put some delicious mancandy in there for the ladies. Why should the guys care? It's not like they're going to be looking at the male characters, anyway... unless there's something they aren't admitting, after all.